Yves is looking for readers who have experience in commercial construction to help debunk a presentation that claims that technology will reduce the cost of construction by 45%. Please e-mail her at [email protected] Please put “Construction Scam” in the subject line. She will send more information. Thanks!

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.
To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

212 comments

Re: This is the handy visual guide that New York magazine published to help readers understand the thesis of its cover story alleging a Trump-Putin plot that began in 1987.

I had a good laugh at this. I guess the left (or at least the center-left) is getting into the conspiracy theory business. I guess it is about time. We can’t let Alex Jones and other righties monopolize the tinfoil hat market! I have to say the NY Mag visual guide is a lot slicker than what you see on most right-wing websites. The right seems to just use MS Paint for their visual guides. Sad!

Great satiric use of “sad” – 1,000 points for sad and 1,000 points for the exclamation point!
unfortunately, I have to subtract 1000 points for the lack of ALL CAPS in “sad”
BTW, does have bold or italics – news is getting kind of thin, so I was thinking we could expand the analytics (i.e., the news maw) if the talking heads could pontificate about words in bold or italics and the differences between them….

Hey there, Comrade Suspect! Now the ‘Organs of the State’ use three degrees of connection to make their lists of “suspects.” This is an automated version of the old ‘paid informer’ racket.
The whole thing reeks of oleaginous hypostacy. Guilt by association is a long known tactic in politics.
Mr Representative Ferret: “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Vegan Party?”
Mz Patricia “Patty” Buttah (Assistant Director FDA Department of Margarine Affairs):”Uh. Mr Representative. I went to a Vegan party at my local health food restaurant once, er, back in ’86, if my memory is good.”
Mr Representative Ferret: “See! The forces of Godless Veganism have infiltrated the very core of our Government!”

That slide is the primary reason why leaders need to think long and hard about going to war. Everybody wants to boil solutions down to a handful of simple bullet points:

1. Invade country
2. Be greeted as liberators
3. Sign contracts for US companies to rebuild country at invaded country’s cost
4. Pull troops out
5. Roll down Fifth Avenue and Constitution Avenue in a ticker tape military parade celebrating victory.

Unfortunately, wars don’t turn out that way because they actually look like that slide, not the bullet points above. Stanley McChrystal missed the point of the slide. He should have said “When we understand this slide, our politicians will not start another pointless war.”

South Park surprises me because there political satire has been off lately. Firmly in the camp who thought Clinton was gonna win, Parker n Stone shouldve connected the dots about the Populists uprisings of Trump and at minimum Bernies contributions.

They did have the army airborne, helicopter gunships, attack bombers, and (I think the marines) although yes the NYPD probably could have done it by itself.

George Bush the Elder stopped prevented the military from advancing further into Iraq, taking Baghdad, and deposing the regime because once the Iraqi army left Kuwait and, more importantly, its oilfields, there was no need to. People were surprised when he stopped the fighting and offered a ceasefire which the Iraqi regime was really happy to take; George the Younger, aka the Shrub, thought Daddy’s prudence was weakness and created exactly what his father feared might happened.

If Noriega & Panama was “one of our own” surely Sadam
Hussein was “one of our own” as he was supported by the US in the proxy war against Iran.

How can it be that those who pertain to be the sharpist knives in the drawer, manage to train and arm the people who subsequently turn against the US – time after time – and remain honourable; medals intact?

I think the attitude is that the military is there to be used especially against the uppity servants/countries that dare think that they are the equal of the United States. The military is the American Empire’s enforcer much like the police in Instead of handguns and batons it’s missiles and tanks. The occasional need to beat or kill a person or a country is just the cost of business. It’s also good to keep the survivors in line.

The article is a great summary. Things make more sense once you accept that the Mulligan President is a Putin asset. He is Putin’s little poodle. Watch him do tricks for Putin at the upcoming summit. History has given the Mulligan President a great gift, in the form of a supine Congress. My big question is the extent to which the GOP Congress is complicit. I’d hope most NC readers would be uncomfortable being on the same side as Devin Nunes.

I think you have it backwards. Trump is a gift to the republican led Congress which is anything but supine. The media concentrates on Trump and the abjectly corrupt Congress gets a pass. Trump, like the last several presidents before him, is nothing but a figurehead. Congress isn’t passing Trump’s agenda, they are passing the agenda they would try to pass regardless of who the president was.

Exactly my thoughts. While the whole world watches Trump, the Repubs assist in focusing the citizens attention on Trump, the Dems fully focus the attention of citizens on Trump, both with the able assistance of Corporate MSM, and Congress with the help of the Blue Dog Dems continue on behind the scenes on doing what they really want.

And anyone with fully functioning brain cells knows that Corporate Greed/Upper-10% support with austerity for the rest of society is what they all really want.

I’ve seen this also reported in the NYT but like here, no discussion at all of the DNA background of still existing New World breeds such as the Chihuahua, Xoloitzcuintli and Peruvian Hairless, which are supposedly only distantly related to European breeds and were present when the Spanish invaded Mexico and Peru. I have read in many different places that the dog represented in the Colima sculpture in the illustration was an ancient link between the Chihuahua and the hairless breeds. Very curious.

The new study is saying that the “New World breeds” like the Chihuahua have very little pre-European ancestry: less than 2%. Hence the theory the original population was almost entirely wiped out by disease.

We are all jammed together on a speeding train heading toward a brick wall. After we hit that wall I doubt the survivors will forgive, forget, or kindly treat those who drove that train and their sycophants, retinue, and protectors.

Toxic femininity article conflates male and masculine, thereby totally missing the point that toxic masculinity is a socially produced phenomenon, often ties directly to the media environment she uses as an example of toxicity.

This distinction, and its correlate, are hardly ever made in discussions of gender/sex issues. You are quite right that the concepts of masculinity and femininity are socio-cultural constructions. Sex and gender distinctions are obviously closely linked but they are not identical. The terms have different referents. The term, gender, seems to have become overgeneralized, not an unusual occurrence. However, sometimes it is essential to distinguish between them and use terms precisely rather than lazily.

Are you saying that she doesn’t make some good points? I often see young women that are “dressed to kill” doing mundane things like grocery shopping. Not a big deal to me, but definitely pleasant to look look at as I pass near them. Many just smile if they happen to look at me when I am looking at them, but some get obviously upset at the brief attention.

Her example of the trip to Latin America (not L.A.) is a very good example of the immaturity that can cause these types of problems in human society.

I also occasionally see the same in my work environment. As I said, it’s no big deal to me, but a little common sense goes a long way to tone down potential problems.

And I don’t live in Hollywood.

All I am saying is that she seems to be pointing out the fact that it’s a two way street and it can easily be exaggerated to the point of toxicity when it’s applied to every male… or every female.

There are some good points, but I think the topic is quite nuanced, and her analysis and language not quite so. Do I think that young women with skimpy clothing is toxic? No, as that is, at this point, generally accepted behavior. I think the toxic behavior is, as you and the author noted, the expectation that another should not enjoy the view when presented.

The aforementioned goes to an underlying meaning of toxicity: it hurts everyone. The one carrying it and the ones around. Bearing flesh does not inherently hurt anyone (although the author, expressing her prudishness, might disagree by stating it limits effort to develop wisdom) – expecting behavior to change out of context does hurt everyone (your expectations and sense of self, as well as relationship to the other expected to change).

Thus toxic masculinity is relatively new – the harms it wrought for ages were not recognized as harms to anyone until recently.

She’s talking about toxic femininity, making her points, but then lays out the actual toxic femininity trap without realizing it as such:
“Women in their sexual prime who are anywhere near the beauty-norms for their culture have a kind of power that nobody else has…”

No they don’t. Exhibit A is Hollywood. None of the adherence to beauty norms or the performance of a very specific kind of gender role gave the accusers power over Weinstein or Cosby. They remained in the position of power in the situations no matter what gown or surgery the woman had to enhance her beauty. The pimp that sends a young girl into the hotels or streets uses the same lines.

Power is more about what happens after sex as much as what happens leading up to it. The tensions around sex are about what happens before and after sex (unless there is a physical health issue) more so than the actual act itself.

Not sure I agree – Weinstein wasn’t preying on the aged, overweight or unattractive. He was going after a specific type of woman and willing to exchange favors with them. I think the fact that they got his attention in the first place indicates they have some sort of power. Most women couldn’t get a multimillionaire Hollywood producer to give then the time of day.

That’s my point. “None of the adherence to beauty norms or the performance of a very specific kind of gender role gave the accusers power over Weinstein or Cosby.”
They got his attention because he had them where he wanted them, because they were following the rules of attention as set, they would be a target for someone looking for someone who would go along to get along.
No amount of perfection in the gender role playing game gave them an ounce of respect from him. There was no exchange of power at any point, except maybe in the minds of some of the women.

L.A., (Hollywood), is a city to which all the country’s, and possibly the world’s, narcissists flock in hopes of becoming part of the film industry based on their special good looks, luck and the fate written in the stars.

Naturally this affects the kind of people one finds in L.A., either through the quantity and quality of voluntary migration there or the effects on the locals.

“L.A.” really means Beverly Hills, the Westside and Hollywood, for the lumpin who still dream big.

Agreed. There are a number of problems with this article. I would like to know what it means to “put on make-up that hints at impending orgasm.” What are the criteria here? Is putting on makeup in this way an intentional act, or something that I can do accidentally? Are there universal criteria by which to judge whether makeup hints at impending orgasm? Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that this author’s biases show when she says: “The amplification of hotness is not, in and of itself, toxic, although personally, I don’t respect it, and never have.” Clearly she sees something wrong with wearing makeup, but to spin that into a claim that links wearing makeup to wanting male attention is spurious. Women wear revealing clothing and make up for all sorts of complicated reasons, not least of which is social pressure.

I think she was talking about lipstick. Personally, I don’t find makeup sexy, so it’s hard to be sure.

I assume that putting on makeup is an intentional act. Can you do it in your sleep? Granted, individuals may not be aware of the effect – they just want to be “attractive.”

Are you actually claiming that outfits that emphasize one’s female attributes are NOT intended to draw male attention? Maybe you should ask the women wearing them. Because I can assure you, they’re very effective. I live in a college town, so I see a lot of examples. Fortunately, I’m old enough to be non-threatening, and try to keep it to an admiring glance. She’s really just saying it’s unfair -“toxic” – to blame others for an effect you intended, or for carrying out a role that was assigned to them by society. Cheating in various ways, from violence to manipulation, that’s toxic.

Her main point is that humans are sexual animals, all the time (an important difference from most other animals), and that isn’t going to go away.

Putting the most positive interpretation on “I don’t respect it,” I think she means taking advantage – or complaining about the natural consequences. She is, after all, a science nerd who has shepherded legions of college students. The anecdote about being offered a gig as a beach bunny extra goes to show she could have played that game if she wanted to. It also implies she didn’t need the money at the time.

At this point in my life I do feel like I could put on makeup in my sleep, but I get your point. And my real point is what you hinted at: can I accidentally put on makeup the ‘hints at impending orgasm’? If I can, then how could I be toxicily feminine when I don’t want the attention that someone else is giving me even though I accidentally look an orgasm is looming. But the claim that I can’t accidentally look like I’m hinting at impending orgasm seems spurious to me.

I’m a woman who has worn many revealing outfits in her life, and I can assure you that for some women that decision is much more complicated than simply a desire to elicit a particular reaction from men. I wear makeup every day because I have done so my whole life, and dealing with comments about how tired or pale I look is not worth the hassle. But I’ve certainly never put on makeup with the purpose of hinting at orgasm, which is why I ask whether this can be done unintentionally. And if so, am I toxically feminine for doing so, or does that only apply if I do so intentionally?

In any case, I do think that there is probably some behavior that we can call toxically feminine, I just don’t think this is it.

My wife has noticed that putting on makeup, doing her hair and dressing up makes a large difference in how she is treated – by women and men both. In her professional life she finds that the hair, clothes and makeup are more important when it comes to her female coworkers, superiors and clients than the men actually.

Yes, but that’s essentially all makeup, so it’s the claim then that all makeup is toxicology feminine?

I also get flushed cheeks and red lips whenever I drink beer, so does drinking beer make me toxically feminine? There might be an important point in this article, but it sounds to me like a lot of spurious assumptions are contained in her premises.

I do think there is both toxically masculine and toxically feminine behavior, but I typically think of toxic masculine behavior as behavior that is encouraged but is detrimental to the men engaging in it as well as the men or women who are the recipients of it, e.g. men who don’t really want to grope women but feel pressured to do so in order to fit in. Then again, I haven’t done a lot of research on toxic masculinity, so I don’t know how it’s typically defined in the literature. It just seems to me that since there are strong social pressures to confirm to gender norms, there is probably a point at which those gender norms are toxic. I’m just not convinced that those lines are drawn where this author thinks they are.

Refer: Election Meddling Overblown: Kennedy said in a CNN interview Monday that the message for Russia was, “stop screwing with American elections.”

You have to appreciate the beauty of the propaganda machinery at work. Emails with incontrovertible evidence is made public showing how HRC/DNC “screwed” the American People out of fair elections and the only residue of it in the public mind is about Russia meddling in the 2016 elections. Redirect, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat…

The only ones allowed to screw with elections are the anointed ones selected by our misgoverning class…disappeared ballots, purged rolls, byzantine rules, gerrymandering, the list could go on and on…

In the end, it seems that there was very little underwater travel necessary – only one, possibly two short passages, and the rest could be either wading or swimming (according to the map in Guardian, who knows how precise it is). Still, no mean feat and congratulations to all!

Now don’t come the raw prawn with me. It’s one thing to build a gold-ruberg device and claim to have a technical answer to this rescue. But if it was used and it got itself jammed in one of the passages underground then it would be game over for anyone on the other side of that cave system. You don’t have to be Tom Terrific to work that one out.

I’ll borry your delightful “come the raw prawn” and give you a Rube Goldberg device in exchange, or was that intentional, in which case I’ll borry it too!

And I rather think the remark was directed at Vlade and PK who offered information earlier not really negated by this outcome, except that it appears the pumping out did lower the water level despite its being a karst cave system.

Thanks, yes, I’ve just read that there was a substantial lowering of water levels in the cave, although this is just as likely to have been natural as due to the pumping (the rains seem to have eased off).

Karst cave systems can flood very rapidly due to the number of channels entering a mature system, but can for the same reasons empty just as quickly. In Ireland, some systems are actually tidal, several miles from the sea.

The problem with “skin-in-the-game” is that it would likely lead to significant risk aversion under ambiguity – or, alternately, significant risk taking.

I.e. he entirely ignores second order behavioral incentives, focusing on the first order only.

This is especially bad in politics, where ambiguity is rife. It would pretty much guarantee (over time), that politics would be full of crooks even more than now (if it’s possible), as you’d KNOW that sooner or later they would get you on “skin in the game”, so looting as much as possible would be the only rational strategy.

Skin-in-the-game strategy for management lead only to the management rigging the game. There’s no reason to think it won’t work the same in other areas.

1) if everyone is motivated by obscenely low frequency events, he would have never have achieved any of the success that he had, nor would anyone would have achieved any other success, we would all be preparing for doomsday ‘clearing’ scenarios all the time.

2) The black swan is not applicable in terms of lateral thinking. Basically, a black swan is not a black swan. If one indulges in lateral thinking from other areas of interest. Black birds, mammals, reptiles, etc being present in all other types of species, therefore suggesting a black swan is not to be expected is idiocy by people that are hyper focused on prior observational data sets rather than lateral comparative data sets.

3) skin in the game leads to all types of perverse incentives. If everyone only has skin in the game then they are only going to make statements that support their specific interests.

If “there forever” is defined as the archives at the NSA, what you say is likely true. I got on the internet about 20 years ago and my first ‘comments’ were at the IndyStar site. There is no trace I can locate the place ever existed, let alone the comments.

When the Firedoglake site disappeared, the blogger posts were supposedly all archived at Shadowproof. Looking specifically at the TBogg blogger, I couldn’t see any comments at all using the Chromium browser.

Are we talking about Elon Musk? One Thai Marine was killed already, why introduce completely unknown variables from an unreliable source? I wouldn’t be surprised if lab mice would know to avoid an analogous situation. Unlike Musk’s potential mantra, the risk he would have posed to this operation’s success is not rocket science. $20 says he only reached out because he needs good PR right now.

Well.. since I was the one with most comments on this, I feel I’d respond.

First, lowering the water levels made TONS of difference. The first cave divers had to do a 5 hour return trip, most of it under water. If the boys had to make the same trip, I stay behind my statement it would be last option to be considered.

The map of the cave now shows that after the substantial reduction in the water levels, there were only two, one very short, one short sections where the boys had to be taken underwater. So it was more walking/swimming than diving – and my issue, if you go back to my first comment was that the talks were of “giving the boys a dive training”, which I claimed was bullshit.

As it also turns out, the boys were given full face masks (with which anyone can dive), were sedated (to prevent panic – the issue I was talking about a LOT), and effectively immobilised as much as it could be w/o actually tying them up (sedating and no fins).

I said
“If I was going to get them out underwater, which would be the last option I’d consider, I’d give them full-face masks, tape those on, and immobilise them, so that even if they do panic, they can’t do anything except hyperventilating (ideally, I’d get them some relaxant drugs, but you never know what that + having oxygen under pressure will do.. And you don’t know when that will wear off either). Then drag them the two miles with a rescuer helping along + monitoring air supply.”

I was also saying (sorry for pasting all, but I don’t want to see like I’m taking things out of context):

“Chances are the boys will be, rather than one on one, sandwiched between two divers. If a diver leads, they cannot control the boy behind them, especially in narrow passages. Two divers is also better if a boy does get lost. You can tie the boy to one of the divers, but that is risky in itself – lines tend to snag, and I can easily see a situation where a boy turns around, snags the line in a piece of equipment, and for example it takes out their mask. Or it snags a rock, and the line would have to be cut so back to no-line (and potentially a massive loss of confidence for the boy, as their safety measure was just lost).”

They did this too – except that they took the risk of the line, which given shorter underwater passages (and the fact that one of the two divers was actually carrying the tank, which I haven’t thought of) was likely acceptable to them.

So, all in all, the solution I proposed was pretty damn close to what they actually did. I think pretty good for an armchair expert.

If you want to argue that the whole thing was absolutely safe, and there was no need to be negative on it all, go and argue it with the family of the dead rescuer.

I read your original comments. They were eye-opening to this non-diver. The sport divers I know, ( who do not do cave diving because they know the dangers), thought the task was impossible. Thanks for your expert commentary on cave diving and its dangers.

I’m not suggesting that the whole thing was completely safe, that is absurd. What I am suggesting is that the doom and gloom scenario was over-promoted on this site as a tendency among the commenting machine. Maybe that says something about Nakedcapitalism.

Perhaps the perpetual snarky criticism machine only works on the internet, as it drives hits on websites to fuel an environment where there are plenty of opinions but there are no actual consequences.

I believe it carries the full weight of information asymmetries as they apply to the commentary proletariat. Sitting around armchairing about all matter of events that we are not intimately tied to.

Because, I’m sure the authorities in Thailand were sitting around looking for comments on Nakedcapitalism and otherwise to construct their appropriate rescue scenario. Because they didn’t have experts on the ground specifically familiar with the caves that ultimately succeeded in their efforts despite the individual life that was lost.

And, we are not completely certain why the diver lost their life because situations are much more complicated on the ground than we tend to allow them to be on the internet. For the convenience of our opinionating on world events.

And, I don’t think this just applies to this particular scenario. We observed after the Boston bombing the great investigative works that the commenting machine managed to achieve.

i’m still not sure what you are trying to achieve. you will make sure to “ the families”? why? are you an expert in rescuing boy scouts from underwater caves, perchance? should we simply not speculate about the chances of success? you keep referring to other examples and issues, but your main meme seems to be that people here think they are saving the world, and that nothing useful can be accomplished by commenting on cave rescues and data mining; moreover, you feel this can be counterproductive, and you feel this is often true at naked capitalism, on these and other subjects.

On the other hand: attempting to form as informed an opinion as possible based on incomplete information is (in my view) one of the missions of NC. Sometimes we do it because the ‘experts’ are captured or have failed us (macroeconomics). Sometimes we do it because we are evaluating the performance of elected representatives who have to do the same thing (politics). Sometimes we do if there are conflicting assertions and propaganda and we have to do the best we can to discern which is correct (foreign policy, Syria, Russiagate). And sometimes we do it just for practice, or entertainment.

Sometimes (possibly even often) we get it wrong, and you are always welcome to critique it – critical thinking being another of the NC missions. But if your argument is that we shouldn’t be doing it at all, then NC may not be the place for you.

While I don’t actually have issues with Vlad’s analysis of the situation, my critiques was not pointed at him in the first place. But, ultimately I do believe that his expertise was used as a justification to paint the response as terrible, predicting inaccurately at least several times that it would be catastrophic. I don’t think that is arguable. So did more information or expertise actually enlighten anyone’s perspective or predictive ability regarding the outcome of these events? It seems to have led opinion down the wrong road.

Skippy is correct. I think Rome is burning while its citizens fiddle on the internet, a pacifying alternative to feel like we are doing something without actually participating in democracy, while nothing is actually done. The bullshit we do while we try to avoid doing our bullshit jobs. And, ultimately all that does is generate revenues for advertisers that use our information to sell us crap we don’t need, as well as fluff marketing executives with bullshit about how their ‘ineffectual’ targeting works.

That is my gripe after about 12 years of reading and commenting on Nakedcapitalism.

I think the going wrong aspect has more to do with randoms showing up in the guise of do gooders [altruistic], when it has a high probability of burnishing image$ or tell all interview$.

Expert diving is not something that is dependent on nationality nor is spelunking or geology.

I think many readers are exposed to more new information here than they would via MSM or the average internet fare. Especially due to the robust nature of the comments section and the proprietors admin methodology. It is the main reason I’m still around after 10 years and still come here. That’s after over around 100 sites pre and post GFC getting trimmed down to a small quiver.

As far as Democracy goes, since I’m a proponent of the social variant, I think the information and deliberation period is key. Sadly do to ideological and other factors, during the neoliberal period, this process has been severely impaired. As such the time required to redress the problem is extenuated compared to more optimal settings.

That’s the short hand, personally I forward a complete revaluation of the mainstream economic purview. Starting with Axiomatic decision theory and working out from there. It took decades to get here and it might take as long to get out. Can’t expect people to engage in democracy without knowlage, that only comes from accurate information. This blogs record ranks high in that regard.

Lastly we all have bad moments, I’ve had mine, lets move on to more important things shall we.

I went off the rails a bit there, I will admit it. Its been a rough year. It was definitely not my best day on the internet. And, I’m sorry for that. But, I will try to synthesize the kernel germinating behind my frustration into something cogent.

As a US immigrant that arrived at the age of 3 and who has worked endlessly since I was a pre-teen in all manner of jobs with people from the lowest rungs to the highest ones, I feel that work has no value anymore. What I am observing is the functionaries of the 0.1%, the ‘managerial class’ or as David Graeber would describe them, those with bullshit jobs, increasingly extract value from the work and resources of the people that do actual work, grinding them down with lower wages and more precarious livelihoods, while the administrative economy of the capitalist system blooms in its function of constant evaluation, surveillance, supervision, reproducing itself endlessly on the labor sur like a bad bacteria. Almost all dignified labor has become incapable of maintaining livelihoods, industry, farming, construction, the maintenance of our built environment, teaching children, nursing, taking care of the old, you better look forward to having 70 hour work weeks or second jobs if you want to survive.

This is actually how my parents described the final stages of Polish socialism, less people doing actual work, but with more people shifting paper around, ‘managing’ that work. I can’t help but observe as Americans fragment endlessly over division after division and not see a precariat that is overwhelmed by being ground down by this phenomena. And, I’m a quite scared for both the working class and the managerial class which has lost almost all connection with what actual productive work is.

In that context, of people being ground down, with less time but more and more groups vying for the attention economy, I think there is a very important question that has not been properly addressed in the modern information economy and the actors within it. Has it been demonstrated that more detailed or ‘better’ information provided to the public results in better decision-making? Does it inform certain people to make better decisions or all people to make better decisions? I’m starting not to be sure anymore.

For a long time I thought that the important thing was to give people good information. But, I’m starting to believe that a sizable segment is actually confounded and not enhanced by more nuance and detail. At least some behavioral economics research that I have reviewed suggests that the more choices that we give people the less likely that they are to actually make a choice. Does that perhaps play the same way with information? Because NC should not be interpreted alone but rather within an information ecosystem, part of the attention economy. There are many sides to this overproduction of information, and it is presently a feature and not a flaw of the ‘bullshit’ economy. The managerial class has made a constant game with no end in sight of arguing over what is wrong, and what to do, without questioning their role.

What we seem to have is an excess of information. The news media is producing endless distraction in the 24-hour news cycle, non–traditional sources are producing an overabundance of information. As we read over every little detail and nuance of every aspect, does it confound decision-making? Because if someone wants to get complicated nuanced information on any side of a discussion, they certainly can find it.

It seems that less informed folks have have trouble distinguishing between generic truth and falsehood. But, more informed people have trouble distinguishing between complicated narratives that are true and complicated narratives that are false. Its basically the phenomena but with higher layers of complexity.

Aldus Huxley described his dystopia as one that would feature an inverted type of totalitarianism. One where we would be suckered into participating in a sick system not by an outside oppressive force but rather by our engagement in endless distraction. The click-update-click-update-click-update of the an internet designed to turn us into addicts to its model of revenue production. The endless distraction of news and ‘expert’ overproduction and the palliative effect of comment forums, where we argue over opinion after opinion.

Has it made us better? Or have we locked ourselves in an endless back loop of arguing over the details without an effective off-ramp to substantive change. Because the internet is designed to capitalize off of our attention / participation in the internet, not in our participation in the real world that exists around us.

I tend to think small. I have a knack for boiling things down into easily understandable summaries or sound bites. Sometimes when a politician or public figure is saying something that’s clearly wrong to anybody with knowledge of NC topics, I can find a sentence or two to contribute that makes it obvious to others why they are wrong.

I was able to do this, for example, with a few devastated Hillary supporters right after the election. I successfully got them to see that a number of proposed follow-up tactics (constitutional coup via the electoral college, weaponization of intelligence agencies) were misguided and dangerous. That was before the propaganda machine ramped up to maximum, but once you’ve seen that kind of thing you can’t unsee it.

So I believe I have been successful in influencing a small number of people. Admittedly not many and I could always do more, but I no longer live in the US and have limited s there, so I don’t have that many opportunities.

Scale, you have to build scale via networks, hence the NC gatherings and people like me who don’t just talk about it on the internet. I politely discuss this in my everyday interactions with co workers, friends and clients daily. Simple MMT stuff e.g. taxes and monetary reality’s vs ideological preferences and environmental biases.

I don’t have to start a club or movement, I just make it a part of my daily life. No need to come off like some evangelist or bringer of the truth, just insert information into conversations as appropriate and let it filter through. In addition add authors or sites that are more granular in unpacking these perspectives so the recipients can do their own searching.

Again this all takes time and there are no guarantees when confronting generational memes after their established. Just look at Hudson’s new post on NC.

It may be that someone in the Thai administration was invoking a good old American Business principle, “Under-promise and Over-Deliver.” Compare this with the Trumpism, “Winning Trade Wars is easy.” . . . “You will be winning so much, you will get tired of winning.

, on the Guardian’s live blog, is the exact quote from the Thai Navy Seals in Thai and English:

เราไม่รู้ว่านี่คือสิ่งมหัศจรรย์ หรือวิทยาศาสตร์ หรืออะไรก็ตาม แต่หมูป่าทั้ง 13 ตัวได้ออกมาจากถ้ำหลวงขุนน้ำนางนอนเป็นที่เรียบร้อยแล้ว
—————-
We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what. All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave.

“All the thirteen Wild Boars” makes no distinction between the boys and their coach—they were all in this together and are now all safe together. The “or what” adds just the right “no matter what it is, they’re out” nuance. The statement conveys both self-effacement and celebration.

The politics of Brexit have caught up with hard reality FT. “Brexiters are like the dog that caught the car.” Looks like the FT has been reading NC.

I wish the FT had been reading NC more closely. Yves coverage has been vastly better than in the FT or any other major English language publication (and of course her predictions have been very accurate so far). Even that article is pretty weak beer, typical of so much of the FT output. I was never sure whether this was through bad reporting or an unwillingness to be seen to be too critical.

Ha, reading some more, it sounds like the boys were also sedated to prevent panic, so sounds like the “full face mask, immobilise [boys were not given fins, which means they could not swim too far even if they wanted], sedate if possible” was implemented.. you first read it here, at NC.

Eat that, Musk! :)

(just poking fun at Musk, I’m sure the real rescue was much more complicated than what I first described – seems like they used tethers after all for example).

I’m a bit confused – recognize the difficulties with current government dragging its feet, but what if the exits of key ministers, as some claim, signal current government is about to be overturned? Particularly with additional ballast of the ‘nerve gas’ claims. At which point Brexit might assume better parameters.

Source familiar tells NBC that Justice Kennedy had been in negotiations with the Trump team for months over Kennedy’s replacement. Once Kennedy received assurances that it would be Kavanaugh (his former law clerk) Kennedy felt comfortable retiring.

Yes. True. If so, it is a blatant attempt to circumvent the Rule of Law. Anyone remember, “…a Government of Laws and not of Men?” This behaviour reminds me of an earlier version of ‘directed power transfer’ that starts with an ‘a’.

I read that Kavanaugh is Kennedys’ “Protege.” Sometimes the illusion is more important than the reality.
Your first point would be correct, unless, as seems to be the case here, one were to make some deals with the ‘powers’ to have the right mix of representatives in the chamber at a particular time. “The Fix Is In” shouldn’t be the American Political Class’ motto.

Exactly. Remember he didn’t die until Bill Clinton became president. I doubt anyone will make Marshall’s mistake again resigning when they don’t need to and losing your S.C. seat to the opposite party. No matter how sick you are you stay on the bench until 67 votes comes up in the Senate to impeach and remove you. Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993).

Coulda been much worse and received a dozen dem votes. This will be fully bipartisan.
But why would trump / far right negotiate? Fear he’d stay until a dem maybe wins in 2020? Pick my boy or maybe Bernie..?

Did you read the article before commenting? The woman was on hospice. She very likely wanted to die at home and did not want to go to a hospital. But hospice is comfort care and it would be very UNcomfortable for her oxygen to be cut off. The utility company claims they didn’t know she was sick, but the family reports both they and hospice staff informed them of her condition. As a hospice social worker I have sent letters to utility companies to prevent them shutting off services for unpaid bills and they were always honored.

What I do wonder is why the hospice didn’t temporarily remove her to a HOSPICE inpatient unit, not the same as being in hospital. Perhaps the woman was very close to death and it was not thought she would survive the ambulance trip.

In any case, I see no reason to feel sorry for the utility company or to blame the woman’s family.

Adding, the death of an elderly woman from known natural causes is not tragic, although of course it is an occasion for her family to grieve, but what is tragic (and traumatic for both patient and family) is for her death to be unnecessarily painful.

Exactly. Unnecessarily painful. It seems likely that she was close to death. I went through this with both of my parents. Had their oxygen supply been turned off, their death would have been much more painful. And if they’re close to death, it would be difficult to impossilbe to move them, even to a close by hospice facility (IF there was even a bed available, which often they aren’t).

This is a tragic story that never needed to happen, especially given that it appears the bill had been paid.

I feel very sad for the family and place blame on the power company, who is clearly at fault.

So, can we expect Saudi Arabian nuclear scientists to be gunned down in public? Maybe precision raids by the Israeli air force to destroy the construction sites? Laptops turn up with Saudi ‘plans’ to use their nuclear plant to build nuclear weapons to destroy civilization with?

It of course makes perfect sense for Saudi Arabia, a country sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world and with pretty much unlimited solar and wind potential, should spend billions on buying those oh-so-cheap nuclear power plants for electricity.

I read years ago that one of the main reasons that Iran developed a nuclear capability was so that they could use nuclear power for their own domestic needs and so have the ability to sell even more oil on the international market.
Perhaps the calculation was that down the track as their oil ran out, that nuclear energy would still be there to fulfill their requirements and they would not have the expense of converting their energy infrastructure over.
Perhaps the Saudis are thinking along the same lines but you do wonder just how much oil reserves they have left. If there was not as much as people thought, this would explain the move to nuclear power.

Saudi domestic oil use has rocketed so much over the years (its now a whopping 3 million barrels a day) that it has seriously reduced their ability to ramp up exports if needed.

The problem is that the oil is mostly used for transport – so unless they swap their Mercs for Teslas, nukes won’t help. About 30% of electricity comes from older oil generators, while more than 50% comes from gas – much of it from Qatar, inconveniently enough. Heavy industry (mostly based on wet gas production) would be largely powered from gas.

But they are predicting a huge increase in energy needs, although this is based as much on very optimistic projections about their switch away from the existing oil economy. But given the expense of setting up a nuclear industry from scratch (not to mention the security issues), you’d really question why they opt for this rather than a gas/solar mix which would almost certainly be cheaper and more robust. Bear in mind that peak power demand in SA coincides with the sunniest part of the day.

Like so much of Gulf strategy, this I think has as much to do with purchasing solid allies as much as anything else. Its the same reason they buy such an expensive mix of combat aircraft – its not about defence its about tying in foreign interest groups. Whats interesting though is that they are doubling down on the US connection rather than, say, looking to buy Chinese or Japanese tech.

I can’t think there’s anything I want more than for the most rigid fundamentalist Islamic culture on the planet, which has been funding terrorism worldwide for decades, to have any kind of nuclear capability.

Donald Trump’s Former Chauffeur Sues for Unpaid Overtime WSJ
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was driving alone in his car one day, and finally, he said “James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide.””

I do wonder why the chauffeur continued working for Trump under the circumstances listed in the article. If he wasn’t giving raises and wasn’t paying overtime, why continue? Surely there’s other rich bastards to work for, other than Trump?

Not meaning to mitigate the circumstances, but Trump is famous for stiffing everyone possible that he can.

I’ve had crummy jobs, where I wasn’t treated correctly. I found another job. I realize it’s harder these days to get decent jobs, but this guy had been working for Trump quite a long time ago when the job market was better.

Went on a 6 hour hike in steep off-trail with a gaggle of cabin owners yesterday, and being the youngest by about 20 years, I was pushed hard by a mountain goat of a 79 year old with no quit in him. The 77 year old and his friend who is merely 74, were a little pressed to keep up.

While I enjoyed the article on toxic femininity, I was very concerned by the concept of “makeup that hints at an impending orgasm”. What the heck? Makeup? A Google search was unhelpful. Is anyone familiar with makeup that hints at a impending orgasm? I really am curious, but I must say that such an inane focus really lessens the impact of the article.

She is a *human* scientist but she writes about humans as if she were a *martian* scientist treating humans as just another set of biological species. Which of course is the only way to write or view objectively anything to do with humans.

Extreme Heat Event in Northern Siberia and the coastal Arctic Ocean This Week

“Because of the attention of this post, I’m updating it to discuss the ongoing intense warming of the parts of the Arctic this week into next week and the implications on the mid-latitudes further. The heatwave in northern Siberia is receding, but heat is building in Northern Canada and Scandinavia this week. All the result of very strong, persistent high pressure systems, leading to surface temperatures 15-30 degrees F (8-17 C) above normal.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A USPS employee making her daily rounds died in L.A. a few days ago from excessive heat, which was @ 117.

Fresno has been judged the drunkest city in the USA on numerous occasions, and if they allowed 420 to be sold in Fresno County, why their ranking might be in serious jeopardy.

The nearest place to score some cannabis w/o an Rx license, is in Woodlake, about 1 1/2 hours away. I was told by somebody in the know that they are doing about $400k a month in retail sales, of which the city of Woodlake gets 5% tax, so a nice $240k a year for a town of less than 10,000 inhabitants.

That amount sounds similar to the taxes a city receives from a new car dealership, on each vehicle sold.

So what happens next?

Does Woodlake drunk with income dreams, allow other 420 establishments to compete against each other, or is it happy with the status quo?

I had a cat that liked to wrap himself around the back of your neck. Very nice on cold winter days. He liked it so much that he would take a flying leap – then scramble the rest of the way. We had to train him to do that only when invited, so we could catch him and boost him the rest of the way, saving claw marks. However, the training, in his opinion, only implied to residents of the house, so we had to warn visitors.

The same cat would stalk our food plates, when we ate on the couch. He was convinced that if he moved slowly enough, we wouldn’t notice.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Automaker BMW says it will build more of its popular SUVs overseas to offset the higher cost of sending cars to China due to recently enacted tariffs.

BMW builds key SUV models in Spartanburg County, where it employs 10,000 people. Those vehicles are exported to 140 countries, making BMW the largest U.S. auto exporter.

BMW and Chinese partner Brilliance Automotive Group Holdings signed an agreement Monday to expand their joint venture, the German automaker said in a news release. The deal will boost the number of cars produced annually at two facilities in China to 520,000 by 2019.

If I owned that Chinese factory, I’d erect a statue of Peter “Death by China” Navarro in front of the plant, in gratitude for the windfall. Thanks, Pete!

A Chinese owner of that Chinese factory would first occupy himself/herself with reverse engineering BMW cars, and not look for any statue artists.

It’s the patriotic thing to do in China, though Trump hates that (but he will not be surprised at cars being exported in the future from 100% Chinese brands looking as good or better than German Beemers.)

Trump seems to have a fascination with China. Could it be that he saw the Great Wall of China and thought: “Hey, that is exactly what we need on the Rio Grande!”. Personally, after the past decade, I have little respect for Obama but wouldn’t it be funny if in 2020 when it became obvious that the Mexican wall was never going to be finished that Obama piped up and said: “You didn’t build that!”

Not to be out-apocalypsed by The Post, Roger Cohen of The New York Times published a full-blown dystopian vision wherein Trump, Putin, Marine Le Pen, the AfD, and a variety of other globalist-hating Hitler-alikes form “the Alliance of Authoritarian and Reactionary States” (the “AARS”), disband the European Union and NATO, impose international martial law, and start ethnically cleansing the West of immigrants. […]

Which is what I find so disturbing, presently. The ease with which the neoliberal ruling classes have programmed millions of Western consumers to believe a narrative no less ridiculous than Scientology’s “body thetans,” Manson’s “Helter Skelter” … or take your pick of any number of other cult narratives. The speed at which they switched from the War on Terror narrative to the Putin-Nazi narrative attests to the power of the corporate media and the neoliberal propaganda machine, generally. It really is an amazing achievement. In less than two years, they managed to condition a significant portion of the Western masses to forget about “the Islamic terrorists” that they had been conditioned to live in fear of, and to transfer their fear and hatred to Trump, and Putin, and anyone who appears to support them, or doesn’t sufficiently hate and fear them.

I’m not sure the US and EU population at large are convinced but no question the elites have become deeply cult like. John Michael Greer calls this the CTRL-LEFT. Perhaps all their Hitler talk expresses a subconscious desire.

The cult behavior started during the primaries, as any Sanders supporter caught in a discussion dominated by Clintonites can attest. The truly committed literally did anything they could to tune out any criticism of their Anointed, and when she lost (as many of us they ignored said she would) they were ripe to be swung to the “Putin stole the election for Trump” myth.

I suppose that had the DNC had them out selling flowers and candy on street corners the correlation might have been more obvious, but their unwavering devotion to HRC, their insistence any criticism of her was misogynistic right-wing propaganda even in the face of presented evidence from patently non-right-wing sources, and their weeping and gnashing of teeth when she was beaten are all classic cult behaviors.

The idea of the Democrats as a cult is particularly striking in regards to the desire to win “moderate, suburban Republicans” or parts of the credentialed class or the employers of the credentialed class who don’t vote Democratic. They don’t want the poor because the poor couldn’t possibly understand 853rd dimensional chess. The Democratic elites and elites at the local level who vote Democratic want to recruit people they want around in the space ship being built in a barn thanks to super brilliant technocrats, not the poor. Like many cults, they expect to be both the select elite and to be joined by foreign or alien multitudes when they reach their destination. They just need to show sufficient devotion and bring better marks or converts in.

Going beyond innuendo presented by the cult leaders would endanger their position in the cult and representation among the select few. Maddow knows best after all. The secret knowledge of 853rd dimensional chess will pay off soon.

I like to harp on the 11th dimensional chess thing because Axelrod butchered a simple metaphor of how many moves a grandmaster is supposed to think in chess and momentarily confused it with a comparison to Spock and 3-d chess. Obama supporters who didn’t recognize the metaphor just kind of ran with it as a pancea to answer all questions about any critique of Obama because chess is stereotypically played by nerds.

I know of few people out here in Apolitica country who are even aware of this frenzy. They’re more familiar with and attuned to chemtrails kookiness than the Strangelovian Russia! hysteria pushed by the “creatives” since Trump came to power.

If it weren’t for internet chat, blogs, and Twitter, I would never have realized that the hysteria continued unabated. However, it really holds sway in a few key circles. The non-reactionary segment of our political elite is quite vulnerable to this manufactured “crisis”.

As a side note, it’s disgusting to view the Russian stooge accusations that have been thrown at Greenwald on Twitter. Of course, the “individuals” who are promoting the Russia hysteria have had it in for him for nearly a decade. He’s never sucked up to their idols. Never been sufficiently impressed by their shibboleth-of-the-month, and, most critically, he failed to worship Obama. Critiquing Obama’s drone policy was so very wrong of him, you know?

CARACAS (Reuters) – Earlier this month, supervisors at the 53 stations in the metro system in Venezuela’s capital Caracas received an unprecedented order: once your supply of tickets runs out, unlock the turnstiles and let passengers ride free.

Like most products used by the metro, the raw materials needed to manufacture the tickets are imported. But the government has not given the company hard currency for imports in more than a year.

Now, machines that once sold tickets read “out of service” and passengers push freely through turnstiles showing green arrows, even as they complain about delays and broken escalators in a system that was once a model for Latin America.

“People are traveling for free because there’s no material for tickets,” said one of the sources, who all requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Even at the old rate of 4 bolivars when they still sold tickets, one yankee dollah would buy you 1,200 years of daily round-trip subway rides.

There is your mega bagger investment sure thing. Go to Bolivia, buy 154,000 gallons for a buck and bring it back to the US where that buck can be transformed into nearly a half million. What an arb opportunity!

For fun I decided to engage in some wild speculations:
I believe the petroleum and coal resources we are burning so prodigiously are a one-time asset which will not be replaced in any near future. [This is an opinion which echoes John Michael Greer’s notions in his Sci Fi novel “Star’s Reach”.] I also believe the energy these resources provide enabled the tremendous growth in human population along with the many technical and scientific advances we, today, take for granted. I believe the large human population contained a correspondingly large component of highly intelligent people which combined with the resources of big government and large public organizations generated inventions and discoveries humankind might not otherwise possess. No small part of this boon resulted from the expenditures supporting our Military Industrial Complex (MIC). But the MIC directed and controlled Science and Development through control over what grants received funding. A portion of the knowledge created was a government supplement to Industry and some of it was an unintended byproduct of the enormous Military spending the Cold War promoted.

The rise of Neoliberalism and the Corporate takeover of our government lead to a takeover of the MIC’s knowledge factories. The MIC is tolerate of high levels of waste but Neoliberalism — not so much. The MIC’s control of knowledge production served as a ready platform from which the Neoliberal Market could be applied to the funding processes to achieve a new kind of control. Neoliberalism found great utility in the prestige Science held in the minds of much of the population. The best Science money can buy replaces Scientific truth with that special truth only the Market can know and promote. The Market neither cares for Knowledge in-itself nor for innovation — other than as a false touchstone for promoting belief in adverting and propaganda. Knowledge, Invention, Innovation, and Education are crushed under the weight of a Managerial De-urge given rein by the Neoliberal Market. The Market assures there will be little advance of Science as we once knew it.

However, I believe a considerable amount of knowledge was discovered and created in the wastes of the MIC spending, before the hostile Corporate takeover. That knowledge, if it can be preserved, as I believe it will be, holds the hope for humankind after the coming Collapse of Petroleum. I believe we were close to major advances in many areas before our Science collapsed. I believe the coming Collapse of Petroleum will leave some of those who follow with the time and freedom to pursue the major advances contained in the legacy of knowledge which will pass from our time to theirs. I believe Chemistry and Biochemistry are especially ripe for great advances, many of which might be reached only through the slow and deliberate contemplation of what has already been discovered.

Looking from the past toward the future: It’s been disappeared, but back in Obamatime, there was a “White Paper” in the whitehouse.gov web site, titled “Lowering Discretionary Spending | The White House.” Which as I recall was all the bits of the Grand Bargain, underscored by plans to divert those “savings” from cutting Medicare and Social Security and the rest into the sequestered “hole” in the war budget. So that was the plan. And then we pivot to the present, looking forward, to another Obamalike creature, Macron. First, there’s this:

And then there are observations on this:

Note especially how the social spending that is so “crazy,” will be turned to a 35% increase in military spending.

Looks like the world is heading for another fun time, or at least more of the same.

How does Austrian society live with the suspicion that there are young people in its ranks who study law or medicine during the day and celebrate the gassing of the Jews with beer in the evening, as these fraternities have been known to do?

How do you live with the suspicion . . . is quite the weasel worded preamble for sensational accusations. This looks like the National Enquirer style sheet or page-six-blind-items. Sheesh.

MOA on Brexit: “My hunch is that Prime Minister Theresa May was tasked with ‘running out the clock’ in negotiations with the EU. Then, shortly before the March 2019 date of a ‘hard Brexit’ would arrive without any agreement with the EU, the powers that be would launch a panic campaign to push the population into a new vote. That vote would end with a victory for the ‘Remain’ side. The UK would continue to be a member of the European Union.”

My hunch, too. The vote was fairly close. Simplest way to do a referendum would be to use the exact same language.

There is not enough time to do a referendum even now before the March 2019 deadline. The Tories are also pretty firmly opposed to it. They would have to do a ton of messaging to make it sufficiently acceptable, since 1. Much of their base supports it and believes panic talk is propaganda of “Remoaners” and 2. Many believe, falsely, that any hits will be short term and more than compensated for by long term gains. And the EU absolutely will not extend the March 2019 drop dead date unless it suits them and then only for a few months. Even now, the realistic time to do a referendum and then have the related Parliamentary votes would go well beyond March 2019. The EU is not going to indulge that.

Why isn’t there enough time to “do a referendum?” If May again called a snap election it would take a few weeks only. But a general election is a vastly more complicated operation. A referendum, accordingly, could be “done” in a matter of days, couldn’t it?

No, a general election doesn’t pose a question to the electorate. A well-established routine of candidates registering, voting papers issued, polling booths booked and staffed etc. is a fairly well oiled machine. But even that needs c. three months’ lead time before polling day (an Electoral Commission requirement is that there is a campaign and that campaign is of sufficient length, usually a month to six weeks, for the electorate to consider the issues).

With a referendum, you haven’t even decided on the question. And the calling of a referendum needs a bill, which needs the question agreed and then the bill going through all the parliamentary sausage making machinery. Oh, and then you get the couple or months of three to organise the actual campaign and the vote.

Trying to do short cuts through any of this will result in legal challenges which, unless every rule in the Electoral Commission’s book has been strictly adhered to, will have the result thrown out by the courts.

Even arch-Remainer Tony Blair said in March or thereabouts that was the very last opportunity for any second referendum.

No, Tusk made at best conciliatory noises which is no surprise given that he is essentially in a diplomatic role in the EU.

Brexit continues to suck the life out of EU progress on other equally pressing issues albeit relegated to a secondary issue compared to bigger fish which need frying in the EU27 and domestically in the U.K. everyone is heartily fed up of the way it is dragging on. There is zero appetite from either Leave or Remain for more partially fulfilled half-hearted stalling which just goes on and on.

Hard core Leavers are happy with a crash out, Remainers predominantly want a soft Brexit with continued Single Market and Customs Union membership and those who don’t side with one extreme or the other would be happy with a fudged compromise if there’s one to be had this year — but nowhere is there any sort of majority for yet more of the same go-nowhere talks about talks stretching into 2019 and beyond.

One of the few things the U.K. and the EU27 can agree on is that a delay will solve nothing. Just to give a “for instance”, it would mess up the 2021-2027 EU budget round. This is a .

Despite that, I can’t agree with:- “There is zero appetite from either Leave or Remain for more partially fulfilled half-hearted stalling which just goes on and on”, which puts leavers and remainers on an equal footing in that particular respect. On the contrary, there seems to be an inexhaustible appetite on the part of remainers for partially fulfilled half-hearted stalling (with May now in the van) – and none whatsoever on the part of leavers

I’ve thought of an even more paranoid version of the Skripal/Novichok saga:

The whole investigation is just a coverup for the reality that Porton Down is making some nasty and highly illegal chemical agent (since Novichok doesn’t fit the facts). In that event, the Skripals are just as much accidental victims as the more recent pair.

The propaganda has gotten so off the wall and repetitive that the black op false flags are becoming obvious. The Anthrax mailings right after 9/11 and at the start of the GWOT took years for the FBI and Robert Muller to investigate. Their second suspect who committed suicide with Tylenol would have had to drive from Fort Detrick MD to the mailbox in Princeton NJ and back at night and to arrive at work at 7 AM. No trace of where the weaponized Anthrax was made was ever found although that strain was used at the bioweapons lab. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation for almost two years, wasn’t implicated.

After reading “Toxic Femininity” over at Quillette, my eye was drawn to another article on the site: “The Feat of White Power”. It’s an interesting read, but in it I came across an American Enterprise Institute study that claimed that 57% of black men are now in the middle and upper third of the income distribution (from 38% in 1960). So I went to read the study, and its very first graphic shows that the proportions of ALL racial groups (white, asian, black, hispanic) increased in their representation in the middle and upper third of the income distribution. None of the groups, in other words, reduced its representation in order to make room for the increased representation of the other groups. Is this like Prairie Home Companion, where all the children are above average? Or are they saying everybody moved up the income distribution in real terms – thus making our society less unequal? – which we know is false. Any thoughts? Here are the links: